


Bird People

by cthchewy (pyrrhic_victoly)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bad Decisions, Forevver Alone, Humanstuck, M/M, Other, Petstuck?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhic_victoly/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus, "self-employed" (unemployed) artist, comes to be in possession of a possessive cockatoo.  This is the tale of a man, his bird, and their epic roadtrip in search of lowve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainofLittleFishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/gifts).



It was love at first sight.

Cronus had used that phrase on many potential dates and also on a great many people he wasn’t seriously considering dating at all, like little old grannies, little old grampies, and babies in strollers. He couldn’t help it! He was just an incorrigible flirt. Everyone likes a dashing rogue.

Nevertheless, this was the first time he had thought to himself “love at first sight” and _meant_ it, and it was to a being who was not at all human. As he stared into those coyly glinting black eyes, Cronus felt his heart melting. He had to have her. A thousand dollars?! Did he have enough dough in the bank after Eridan cut him off? Would his brother mind terribly if Cronus were to “borrow” just a bit more, just for a little while?

Cronus tried to fight the urge to sink to such despicable moral lows, but Babydoll continued to wordlessly plead with him. She canted her head for scratches, and he was sold. Even more sold than he’d been a second ago.

\---

It started on a day like any other. When Cronus came down the stairs fashionably late for breakfast, he was immediately greeted with his brother’s cursing about his aquarium.

“Fuck! Napoleon’s out of shrimp! Cronus, you useless ass, did you feed them all to Attila? I _told_ you she’s on a diet!”

“But you named her Attila the Hungry! How was I supposed to ignore the cries of the hungry?”

“She’s a _fish_ , she can’t _cry_.”

As if hearing her name, Attila swam forth in her waddling way, the pufferfish following their movements with wide eyes and slightly open mouth. Cronus had wanted a dog, but Eridan wouldn’t stand for any pets in his home that weren’t always where he put them – in a tank. The closest they got to a puppy was Attila, who followed her owners across her tank and would gesture to the top of her abode, “Yes, please make food fall from the sky.”

Behind Attila, her boyfriend Genghis seemingly shook his pufferfishy head and dove back into a rock. Across the room, Napoleon the seahorse floated serenely, waiting to be fed. Napoleon’s tankmates, Alexander and Julius, bobbed their heads in and out of their sand burrow as gobies are wont to do. And in the center of the living room, in a tank that stretched half the length of the considerably lengthy wall, Caligula the shark loomed disapprovingly. Caligula’s mouth was permanently set in a frown, but Cronus always thought the look was more severe when pointed in his direction. If there was one thing he’d learned from growing up in a fish-loving family, it was that you Don’t Fuck With Sharks, and so Cronus brought his hands up placatingly and set about making things right.

“All right, all right,” Cronus said. “I’ll pick up some more, okay?”

“You’re gonna pick some up right now, and you’re gonna stop feeding them, too! You’re too soft-hearted to make sure they have a balanced diet.” Eridan frowned at his older brother until Cronus relented.

“Sure thing, Chief, that too,” he said with a sigh. When had his baby brother become such a hardass? Just because Cronus didn’t make much cash while Eridan had sold his soul to be a banker… Such were the pains of being a sensitive artistic type.

He grabbed his keys and hopped into his vintage convertible, popping in a cigarette as he sped down to the local pet store. It was a pretty big place that even billed itself as a “warehouse”, though as far as Cronus could see, that was just an excuse to save on interior decorating costs. He’d come here with Eridan plenty of times, though that was always just to the fish section so Eridan could show him the things to get if ever he needed Cronus to run an errand for his aquatic babies. Today was that day.

The fish section was all the way to the back of the store, and Cronus dutifully made a beeline for it. Once there, he swaggered to the freezer and picked up a few packs of what he’d seen Eridan get before – frozen mysis shrimp. On his way back to the front of the store, Cronus spotted a new employee, a smoking little number sweeping the floor by the bird section, which was off to the side in an alcove, sandwiched between the reptiles and the mammals.

She was wearing a white work polo and humming to herself as she worked, her long black hair gently swaying with her steps. Her brilliantly bright green eyes glinting with mischief behind the clear moons of her spectacles… Her nametag said “Jade”, quite fitting. Cronus was poetically inspired. He called out to her, this nymph of the wilds.

“Hey, babydoll.”

“Baaaaabydoll,” said a voice sweet yet rasping. It was a voice not at all coming from the employee who was now looking at Cronus and honest-to-god _smiling_ at him. This was not something that happened very often. Or, well, she was kind of partially smiling over him.

Cronus shifted to see what had caught the lovely lady’s attention. There was a bird dancing in the cage right next to him, a great big bird all white and fluffy. It crooned at him and spread its wings, its voice melodic as it said again, “Baaaabydoll!” Above the cage was a sign: “Babydoll. Sulfur Crested Cockatoo.”

“I’ll take her,” Cronus said to the employee after what seemed to be an eternity lost in Babydoll’s eyes.

“Love at first sight, huh?” Her jade green eyes didn't merely glint, but sparkle. Fuck yes, Babydoll was also a chick magnet.

“Yeah. Don’t know much about birds, but Babydoll an’ me, we got a connection.” He clenched his teeth around the unlit cigarette and waggled his eyebrows a bit.

It was a thousand for the bird, another couple hundred for the cage, food, and toys. Cronus charged it all to Eridan’s card and felt, well, actually quite a bit of remorse, but this was negated whenever he looked over to his precious Babydoll. Babydoll didn’t even need to be put in one of those cardboard carrying boxes. She hopped right on up his arm and made herself at home on his shoulder.

And when Eridan blew his top as was expected, Cronus didn’t feel all that bad, really. He’d lived out of his car before, and he could do it again. He set up the bird cage in the back seat, strapped it in with the seatbelts and an extra bit of rope. The top of the cage opened up so Babydoll could climb in and out as she pleased. With the top down on the car as well, there was nothing between her and the sun, wind, and freedom of the great outdoors.

“S’just you an’ me, Babydoll. We’re going for a ride.”

“Baaaaabydoll.”

“I love you, Babydoll.”

“Wark! Love you.”


	2. Chapter 2

On the first day of what Cronus felt would be the start of his romantic drifter lifestyle, Cronus and Babydoll hit up New York City. It was a four hour drive from the Ampora estate in coastal Massachusetts, but since they’d gotten an early start, it was only late afternoon when they arrived. They wandered around a bit, and Cronus tried to make a bit of gas money playing songs on his guitar.

Babydoll would, at turns, hide in the crook of his arm or dance beside him as he played. Most of the tips came when she was dancing, though it still wasn’t a lot. Being a street performer in New York was like being a grain of sand on a beach. At one point, Cronus considered camping out in Times Square until the Naked Cowboy appeared so that they could do a naked duet, but Babydoll crawled onto his lap and whined in a way that expressed her obvious fatigue. In hindsight, such a big city was too much for her first outing, and so for dinner they drove back out to the outskirts of the city and stopped at a truck stop diner, the first of many.

Cronus made sure his hair was slicked just right, cigarette in place, before he sauntered into the nearly deserted diner. Lo and behold, a golden beauty, radiant as the dawn, sat awaiting her prince charming.

He took the booth behind her and set Babydoll on the divider between. Cronus, feeling particularly inspired, had penned half an ode to her splendid visage before the lone waitress could even make her way over.

“What can I getcha, hun? Need a menu?”

“Nah, s’good. I’ll just have, ah, a coffee…” Cronus paused when he felt the bird nip at his collar for attention. Maybe Babydoll was hungry, he thought, though she’d eaten some of her pellets when they were in the car. But what kind of food were pellets, anyway. Even Eridan’s fish had gotten frozen seafood, yeah? People food. Babydoll needed to experience people food. “…And waffles,” he finished with his most disarming grin.

Babydoll preened his hair as he set back to finishing his love letter. It began with “goddess of light” and ended with “my bed tonight”. A true masterpiece that, upon its completion, brought with it a true conundrum: paper airplane – tacky?

The answer was yes. Cronus folded his heartfelt message and held it up to Babydoll. She bit it, piercing all the way through.

“No, wait! Gently!” he hissed.

Babydoll cocked her head in confusion, but held the paper in her beak. It was then that Cronus began his first steps into parrot training. Luckily, Babydoll was a quick study and understood when he pointed to the lovely lady’s table. She hopped across to the other booth and waddled her way to the woman, delivery mostly intact.

Said lovely lady smiled when she noticed the bird. Her smile turned sly when she spied Cronus peeking from his booth, but rather than make a scene of it, she quietly reached for the letter.

Babydoll lunged. Blood splattered across the table.

There was a shriek – from Cronus. “Babydoll, no!”

\---

The phone rang once, twice before Karkat picked it up and barked, “Kankri’s not home.”

“Kar, before I say anything else, you need to know that this is all your fault.”

“My fault? That’s a great conversation starter there. A whole new low for you, and you were already the king of limbo. Am I supposed to ask ‘What do you mean? What’s my fault?’ Well fuck you and the shit pony you rode in on.”

“Wow, rude.”

“ _Rude_? Rude is when you start a conversation out of the fucking blue accusing someone of a vague some-fucking-thing being all their fault.”

“My brother’s gone because a you! I dunno w-where he is! I only yelled at him a little bit, an’ then he was _gone_ , an’ it’s all your fault!” 

Eridan’s slight speech impediment got worse as he was emotionally distraught, so when Karkat heard the waviness in his childhood friend’s voice, he took in a deep breath to calm himself before launching back into the conversation in a friendlier tone of voice. “Slow the fuck down. Breathe, fish douche. You calm?”

“Yeah,” Eridan blubbered.

“Okay, _now_ tell me what happened.”

“Cro’s _gone_. He took his car an’ his guitar an’ he _left_ an’ he’s been gone for _days_.”

“And this is my fault how?”

“Because yeah, I told him off for gettin’ a parrot without thinkin’ a the consequences, but you convinced him to get the parrot in the first place!”

“Okay, no. That’s…no. I haven’t talked to your brother in years, Eridan. Remember that part of our teenage years where he kept hitting on me and trying to touch me in my no-no places? Yeah, that’s why I never talk to Cronus. I don’t care if he’s learned his lesson, he still gives me the creeps.” Karkat glanced to his side where his parrot, Psi, was dozing sweetly on the back of a chair. Sleep was the only time he was ever sweet. Psi was a gift from his late grandfather, and the bird was a right old bastard whom Karkat wouldn’t wish on anybody despite his occasional offers. 

“Also,” he continued, “it’s not my fault if someone is stupid enough not to recognize the metric ton of uranium that is the explosive force of my sarcasm. When I tell people to get a parrot because, no, really, they’ll enjoy the experience, I actually mean never do this because it’ll fuck up their lives in ways no oracle could ever foresee. Their lives will be so fucked not even a gangbang enthusiast would want to touch it with a telephone pole.”

This was all true. The only person Karkat had managed to “convince” to get a parrot was his friend Sollux, who had done so exactly _because_ he was a trouble magnet. Sollux was the one weirdo who actually liked Psi and decided that he would intentionally get a jerk for a pet so that he could emulate the devastating effects that having a jerk for a pet caused to one’s social life. In short, he’d seen how Psi attacked most of the people Karkat tried to invite over, and he’d seen how Psi shouted obscenities in the background whenever Karkat tried to talk on the phone to anyone he was dating (but never his normal friends, how the fuck did the bird know?), and then he’d decided, yes, that was exactly the kind of relationship-destroying creature he wanted in his life. There really was no hope for Sollux.

The line was silent as Eridan slowly came to the realization that Karkat was, as always, right.

“Huh. I guess that’s true.”

“Of course it is. And _now_ we can move on to finding your douchebag brother. Keep in mind that I’m helping for your sake and not for his, and also to protect innocent bystanders from having to be exposed to his toxic smarm. …Have you called the cops?”

“He’s a grown man, Kar! They’re not gonna help me search for a grown man who ain’t committed a crime!”

“Say he stole your things, then.”

“No!”

“What, it’s true! I’ll bet he took at least ten, twenty grand off your soulless corporate ass. How’d he afford the parrot, huh? And how much does he still owe you for that fancy car of his? There’s no way he’s paid it off with the way he lazes around pretending to be a greaser. You need to face the facts, Eridan. Your brother’s an over-privileged, money-leeching manchild!”

Eridan, again, was silent. This was how Karkat knew he’d won, though the taste of victory was bittersweet. The Amporas had always been rich. Karkat remembered childhood summers spent with Eridan in their house with the big fucking pool, giant marlins and other game fish taxidermy projects hanging from the walls of the den. That was before their even richer uncle died and they moved into the old family estate in Boston.

Eridan had been a brat once upon a time, and he still was, in a way. But he at least made an effort to be a decent human being once in a while. Sure, he whined like an emo teen despite being a decade past the acceptable age for such things, but he worked to continue his lavish lifestyle and he was decent enough to have kept supporting his worthless brother for so long. That was a mark of loyalty, even though it was for someone who didn’t deserve it; Karkat approved.

Cronus, though…. Cronus was trash.

\---

“I’m so, so sorry about this, ma’am.” The bite was bandaged, and Babydoll had returned to sulking and whining on Cronus’ shoulder, but Cronus still couldn’t help but flush in utter embarrassment.

“That’s quite all right. It was partly my fault as well, you see. I have family who keep birds, so I should have recognized the threat display for what it was.”

“Er, yeah?”

“Yes,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Perhaps you didn’t see since you were farther away? Your bird had her feathers pinned back, held tight to her body. It’s a sign of aggression. Usually her beak would have been open as well, but I didn’t notice in time because of her… delivery.”

“Oh, right, yes, that. I am _really_ sorry.”

“…I’m also not used to dealing with inexperienced bird owners with such hubris as to encourage their completely unsocialized pets to go outside and approach random strangers. It’s no wonder she felt threatened in the first place.” The lady’s eyebrow remained raised throughout her speech. It was almost amazing how long she managed to hold the expression of mild contempt. “And by the way, the vocabulary you used in your poem is quite the peculiar mélange of sophisticated and crass. I suggest you pick a tone and stick with it.”

Cronus, already beaten down, wilted even more under her literary criticism. He was almost glad when she plopped down a twenty and swished out of the diner. Oh evil temptress! Oh bitch most foul, behind whose rockin’ tits lies a hellbeast from beyond the void!

“You should take her advice,” said the waitress. “She’s a published author. Waffles’re ready.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of Cronus’ vacated booth.

He wasn’t hungry anymore, not at all. But Babydoll perked up at the sight of waffles, and so Cronus cut them into little bite sized pieces and fed them to the bird. She chose to grab them with her feet, getting sticky syrup all over her talons and then licking it off.

Cronus sighed. “I’ll never be alone as long as I have you, Babydoll.”

Babydoll’s mouth was too full of waffles to respond.


End file.
